Electrically powered vehicles have been in existence for a long period of time. One of the drawbacks of these vehicles has been the relatively short distance these vehicles can travel on electrical power because of the amount/longevity of electrical charge their batteries can retain. As battery technology has improved and the amount of an electrical charge retained by a battery has increased, these vehicles can now travel reasonable distances. However, even with recent advances in battery technology once these vehicles have traveled a few hundred miles their batteries need to be recharged. Recently, as a result of very high petroleum based fuel prices, there has been a renewed interest in these vehicles. A new demand has emerged for electrically powered vehicles. As more and more of these vehicles are put into service, there will be a need for the batteries in these vehicles to be charged or recharged at locations other than their normal recharging site.
These locations will need to be able to provide parking long enough for the charge to take place, access to electricity, a safe and secure method of delivering that electricity to a vehicle and a method for authorizing, billing, and accounting for the expenses associated with the charging activity.
These electric car recharging locations may include parking facilities located at transportation centers, public and private municipal parking facilities, parking facilities located at hotels, motels, casinos, entertainment complexes, parking facilities at hospital, educational, and corporate campuses, and parking facilities located at shopping mall. Until now there have been no facilities or services, other than an electrical plug in a wall, to charge and recharge these vehicles at these varying locations. There has been no system provided allow these existing facilities to provide this service. However, there currently are combination parking and electrical charging meters. A number of these, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,297,664, 5,263,565 and 5,563,491 are discussed herein after.